Rockstar Games announced Friday that Grand Theft Auto Online would be receiving a new update in December, as has long been the norm and was anticipated as the second of the now biannual updates to be received in 2024. The announcement was made in the company’s standard Community Update post.
The announcement, which you can read here, states,
Exciting New Update Coming in December
The notorious Darnell Bros Garment Factory front is under new management. With the aid of helmsman Pavel and a former FIB officer turned independent contractor, you’ll convert it into a hive for clandestine infiltration operations where you can launch a bevy of thrilling and strategic new robberies. These will be accessible from the computer terminal inside the Garment Factory or remotely via a brand-new app on your iFruit.
December’s update also features additional Dispatch Work missions, new rides, Job Creator updates, and new upgrades for your Benefactor Terrorbyte, including a Collectible Scanner to help pinpoint a wide range of treasures whenever they are in close proximity — including Action Figures, Movie Props, G’s Cache drops, and many more.
Further regarding the update, Rockstar lauded the community’s efforts in vastly outperforming both the initial challenge and its successor in the zombie-fighting North Yankton Nightmare Community Challenge and stated that the community would be given special rewards as part of the December update should it complete a new community challenge’s goal that would be coming in November.
Rockstar continued to announce coming changes to the platform, including improvements to the Vinewood Club for GTA+ members (GTA+ benefits are currently limited to the PlayStation 5- and Xbox Series X|S-specific editions of the game) including the new ability to access Hao’s Special Works, Benny’s Original Motorworks, and Drift upgrades all from within the confines of the club garage’s vehicle workshop. A quality-of-life update was announced for all players regardless of GTA+ membership in the form of Body Armor stock automatically refilling when missions are launched.
The article goes on to announce continued weekly events and bonuses, holiday celebrations, “gifts,” and “surprises,” but only after all that does Rockstar make perhaps the most significant announcement of the day in a manner akin to its first mention of Grand Theft Auto VI being tucked away in a sentence or two at the end of a similar post back in February of 2022. Rockstar announced Friday that the features currently found on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S editions of the game were coming to PC “in the new year.”
It should be noted as claims and speculations will certainly run through the community that Rockstar never specified exactly what features it includes. One can reasonably assume that this will include ray tracing and other technical features and likely the career builder function available as one first begins Grand Theft Auto Online. However, until Rockstar officially says that GTA+ will be made available for PC players, caution is advised against assuming GTA+ features such as the monthly bonuses and exclusives like Hao’s Special Works will be brought to the PC version. Should GTA+ launch on PC it would also remain to be seen whether that would indicate PC versions of other games included in the GTA+ Games Library would become included in the package. These currently include titles such as Bully, Red Dead Redemption with Undead Nightmare (whose PC version only just released Tuesday at a price tag $49.99 in the United States, though the identically priced PlayStation 4 version released in August 2023 has since hit the platform), Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition, and L.A. Noire.
It is further unclear whether this upgrade for PC will be a free update or follow the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S editions of the game in requiring the player to repurchase the game with the option to migrate his existing player over to the next-gen version. The PC version already possesses higher specs than the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One versions of the game which would make the upgrade fee seem even less justifiable, given that with the exception of these features, it is already arguably the best version in fidelity and graphics out of all platforms, missing only the ray tracing and perhaps a couple other small benefits added to the more limited console hardware (given that there is almost no peak in the range of PCs on the higher end).
Regardless, even as the trend seems to be re-releases of its older games, Rockstar has maintained a steady flow of new content in its biannual Grand Theft Auto Online updates with other new features and activities launching on their own – The Cluckin’ Bell Farm Raid was officially part of 2023’s The Chop Shop update despite launching in 2024 and other new features like the Pizza Boy deliveries have been added independently as well – and having at least released a game in a new format every year since 2021 (November 11, 2021 saw Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition launch on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S; November 15, 2021 saw Manhunt, Max Payne, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, and Max Payne 3 made backwards compatible on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S; March 15, 2022 saw Grand Theft Auto Online and Grand Theft Auto V launch in their once-dubbed “Expanded and Enhanced” versions on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S; August 17, 2023 saw Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare launch together on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 (via PlayStation 4 backwards compatibility); December 14, 2023 saw Netflix’s improved version of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition launch on Android and iOS devices; and most recently, October 29, 2024 saw the release of Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare for Windows).
Recent leaks (from Rockstar Games themselves in the form of an update to Rockstar Games Launcher) in the lead-up to the official announcement of the PC port of Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare had shown a folder for “GTA V (nextgen),” possibly indicating the release will come out as a new purchase. In that event, it is unclear whether Rockstar will follow the Trilogy model in tying the release to a Rockstar Games Store exclusive for about a year prior to releasing on Steam and Epic Games Store, or if it will follow the Red Dead Redemption model of being available on all platforms from day one. With the imminence of Grand Theft Auto VI soon to overshadow GTA V, the all-platforms model seems most likely in order to maximize sales (just as the GTA+ for PC would as well) of what is already the second best-selling game of all time. Those same leaks also seemed to indicate a to-be-announced PC version of Grand Theft Auto VI (“Americas” folder) which was never really in doubt but is likely to come at least a year after the console release of Fall 2025.
